There's a lot to celebrate this Independence Day, as we mark the 249th anniversary of our national divorce from Great Britain and the abuses of King George III.

Yet under the flags and fireworks, the hot dogs and hamburgers, and the checkered tablecloths camouflaged in red, white, and blue, lies an uncomfortable ironic truth: You're not as free as you think.

This may sound absurd, inappropriate, even unpatriotic. How could this be, in "the land of the free"?

The fact is each of us is shackled by invisible economic, regulatory, and civil chains.

Hidden in plain sight is a tangled and ever-expanding web of federal, state, and local taxes, programs, regulations, spending, and debt--the overwhelming majority of which unjustly constrain and violate our God-given natural rights.

Perhaps the most egregious........

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